Browser stats for Q1 and Q2

It’s past time for some browser stats; as always according to StatCounter. Because I haven’t written an update in months I treat Q1 and Q2 in this article.

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Mobile quarterly

The mobile browser stats are becoming somewhat boring. The most important thing that’s happened in the past six months is UC’s rise to the fifth largest mobile browser in the world, dislodging BlackBerry from that position. I will clearly have to study UC more.

A trend that we already saw coming at the end of last year becomes reality: the old top-two (Safari and Opera) has become a top-three (Safari, Opera, and Android). In Q2 Opera was even relegated to the third place. That doesn’t mean particularly much, except that Android WebKit is now a clear contender for the top spot. I expect these three browsers to continue circling each other in the top-three, without one of them clearly taking the lead.

Finally some good news for Microsoft: IE use is detectable now on a global scale. 1% of market share is not really a lot, but it’s better than nothing.

The market share of mobile as a whole continues to rise, and now tops 10%. Obviously, it’s going to rise a lot more in months to come. Shall we say 15% at the end of the year? Yes, that sounds about right.

Global mobile browser stats, quarterly

Browser

Q2 2012

ch

Q1 2012

ch

Q4 2011

ch

Q3 2011

Safari

24%

0

24%

+1

23%

+3

20%

Android

22%

0

22%

+2

20%

+1

19%

Opera

22%

-1

23%

0

23%

+1

22%

Nokia

11%

-1

12%

0

12%

-5

17%

UC

8%

+2

6%

+1

5%

+4

1%

BlackBerry

5%

-1

6%

-2

8%

-4

12%

NetFront

4%

+1

3%

0

3%

-1

4%

Dolfin

1%

0

1%

0

1%

0

1%

Samsung

1%

0

1%

0

1%

0

1%

IE

1%

+1

0

0

0

0

0

Other

1%

-1

2%

-2

4%

+2

2%

Volatility

4%

4%

11%*

Mobile

10%

+1

9%

+2

7%

0

7%

* Of the 11% volatility in Q3, 4% comes from a problem that misdetected some UCs as Nokia. This problem was resolved in Q4, which caused a jump in UC at Nokia’s expense.

Desktop quarterly

The desktop market is much more exciting these days. IE has been relegated to only one third of the market and falling, while Firefox is stuck at one quarter. Next quarter Chrome will be the largest desktop browser. That would be wonderful for Google, except for the fact that desktop as a whole is a shrinking market. But Chrome-on-Android can help here.